[written by the speaker to the judges, to stay proceedings against a privileged person, they rejected it as being contrary to their oath of office (a). But when the 12 & 13 Will. III. (1700), c. 3, enacted that no privileged person should be subject to arrest or imprisonment, it was held that such arrest was irregular ab initio, and that the party might accordingly be discharged upon motion (b). There is, however, no precedent of any such writ of privilege in criminal proceedings, but only in civil suits; and the 1 Jac. I. (1604), c. 13, and 12 & 13 Will. III. (1700), c. 3, speak only of civil actions, and the claim of privilege is usually guarded so as not to extend to treason, felony, or breach of the peace (c). Instances are not wanting wherein privileged persons have been convicted of misdemeanors, and either committed or prosecuted to outlawry, in the middle of a session (d); and this limit to, or exception from, the privilege afterwards received the approbation of parliament (e). As regards the writing and publishing of seditious libels, it was resolved by both houses that there was no privilege in such a case (ƒ). The principle of this resolution extends equally to every indictable offence ; and the privilege is not available, where the arrest is for contempt of court or on a writ of attachment (g), provided such arrest be punitive in its nature, and not merely civil process to enforce obedience to the court's order (h). Even in indictable cases, however, there belongs to the houses of parliament the right to receive immediate information of the imprisonment or detention of any member, with the reason for which he is detained (); and the practice (a) Hodges v. Moor, Latch. 48; Noy, 83. (b) Holliday v. Pitt (1733), Str. 985. (c) 4 Inst. 25; Com. Journ. 17th Aug. 1641; Com. Journ. 20th May, 1675. (d) Mich. 16th Edw. 4, in Scacc.; Ld. Raym. 1461. (e) Com. Journ. 16th May, 1726. (f) Ib. 24th Nov.; Lords' Journ. 29th Nov. 1763. (g) Gent-Davis v. Harris (1888), 40 Ch. D. 190. (h) Re Armstrong, [1892] 1 Q. B. 327. Journ. 20th Apr. (i) Com. 1762. [is recognized by divers temporary statutes for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, whereby it has been usually provided, that no member of either house shall be detained till the matter of which he stands suspected be communicated to the house of which he is a member, and the consent of the house be obtained for his commitment(). But the usage has uniformly been, ever since the Revolution, that the communication has been subsequent to the arrest (k). There were also, at one time, privileges of parliament, protecting the lands and goods of the members, and even their menial servants, not only from illegal violence, but also from seizure under the civil processes of the courts of law. Even now to assault with violence a member of either house, or his menial servants, is a high contempt of parliament, and is punished with the utmost severity; and peculiar penalties were at one time annexed to this offence by the 5 Hen. IV. (1403), c. 6, and 11 Hen. VI. (1433), c. 11.] But all parliamentary exemptions from liability to civil process, save only as to the freedom of the person of the member himself, are now at an end, having been first restrained, and at length totally abolished, by the legislature. For, by the Parliamentary Privilege Act, 1770, it was enacted, in extension of certain previous statutes (1), that an action might be brought against a member of either house, or against his servants, or against any other person entitled to privilege of parliament; and that no such action, nor any process, or proceeding thereupon, should be impeached, stayed, or delayed by pretence of privilege, except that the person only of the member himself should not thereby be subjected to arrest. (j) See particularly 17 Geo. 2 (1743), c. 6; Protection of Person and Property (Ireland) Act, 1881; Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1881, continued by the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Continu ance Act, 1886, and by the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, s. 8, but now expired. (k) See Mr. Gray's Case, M.P. for Dublin, 1882, committed for contempt of court by Lawson, J. (/) 12 & 13 Will. 3 (1700), c. 3; 2 & 3 Anne (1703), c. 12; The Parliamentary Privilege Act, 1737. In addition to the privileges of freedom of speech and of freedom from arrest, the right of parliament freely to publish its own reports, papers, votes, and other proceedings, is now specially protected by statute. For it has been provided by the Parliamentary Papers Act, 1840, that any one on being sued or prosecuted on account of the publication of such matters by authority of either house, may have the proceedings against him stayed, and all process therein superseded, on production to the court of a proper certificate of such authority; and that no person shall be liable to any civil or criminal proceeding for printing extracts from or abstracts of parliamentary documents, provided he do so bona fide and without malice (m). It is moreover clearly settled, that in any case in which the privileges of either house of parliament have been violated, that house has power to commit to prison the person guilty of such contempt (n); and also, by its order, to set at liberty any one who, in breach of its privileges, has been arrested in respect of any act by him done in his capacity of member of parliament (0). These being the laws and customs of parliament, regarded as one aggregate body, we will now consider the laws and customs of each house separately, first, those of the House of Lords, and secondly, those of the House of Commons. IV. The laws and customs relating to the House of Lords. -[One very antient privilege (worth mentioning only as illustrative of a former era) is that declared by the Charter of the Forest (p), of the ninth year of Henry the Third, viz., that every archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, “coming to us at our commandment," passing through the king's forests, may kill one or two of the king's deer without warrant, in view of the forester, if he be present, or on blowing a (m) Stockdale v. Hansard (1840), 11 A. & E. 297. (n) Burdett V. Abbot (1811), 14 East, 158. (0) 1 Jac. 1 (1604), c. 13. (p) Carta de Foresta, c. 11, confirmed 25 Edw. 1 (1297). [horn, if he be absent. In the next place, the peers have a right to be attended by the judges, and also by certain of his Majesty's counsel, for the greater dignity of their proceedings; and in the exercise of their appellate jurisdiction, it was often their practice to request the opinion of the judges, in point of law, upon the question which was before them for their determination. But the power of summoning the judges has only been exercised twice since the passing of the Judicature Act (q). The secretaries of state, with the attorney and solicitor-general used also to attend the house of peers, and have to this day (together with the judges and the King's counsel above referred to) their regular writs of summons issued out at the beginning. of every parliament (ad tractandum, but not ad consentiendum) (r); but whenever they have been members of the house of commons (s),their attendance on the lords has of late years fallen into disuse (t). Another privilege of the peers formerly was that every peer, by licence obtained from the Crown, might make another lord of parliament his proxy, to vote for him in his absence (u),— a privilege which a member of the other house neither can nor could have, as he is himself but a proxy for a multitude of other people (a). But, by the orders of the house itself, no proxy might vote on a question of guilty or not guilty; and only a spiritual lord could be proxy for a spiritual lord, and a temporal lord for a temporal lord. And since 1868 this privilege has been waived in virtue of a resolu (q) Dalton v. Angus (1881), 6 A. C. 740; Allen v. Flood, [1898] A. C. 1. (r) Stat. 31 Hen. 8 (1539), c. 10; Smith, Commonw. b. 2, ch. 3; Moor, 551; 4 Inst. 4; Hale, Parl. 140. (8) Com. Journ. 11th April, 1614; 8th Feb. 1620; 10th Feb. 1625; 4 Inst. 48. (1) There are several resolutions before the Restoration, declaring the attorney-general, on account of this attendance, incapable of sitting among the commons; and Sir Heneage Finch is said to have been the first attorneygeneral who so sat. (u) Seld. Baronage, p. 1, ch. 1. (x) Inst. 12; Com. Dig. Parl. D. 19; 1 Woodd. 41. [tion of the house, and all votes are now given in person (y). Every peer has a right, when a vote passes contrary to his sentiments, to enter with the leave of the house, his dissent on its journals, with the reasons for such dissent, which is usually called his protest (z). All bills that may in their consequences affect the rights of the peerage, are by the custom of parliament to have their first rise and beginning in the house of peers; and they are to suffer no changes or amendments in the house of commons, though the latter house has the power of rejecting them altogether.] By the Bankruptcy Disqualification Act, 1871, as amended by the Bankruptcy Act, 1883, s. 32, no writ of summons can be issued to a bankrupt peer; and every peer who becomes bankrupt is disqualified from sitting or voting in the house of lords, until his bankruptcy shall have been determined as in the Acts provided. And the disqualification is now to be removed only if the adjudication is annulled, or if the bankrupt obtains his discharge with a certificate that the bankruptcy was caused by misfortune, and not by misconduct. V. [The laws and customs of the House of Commons.— These concern either (1) The raising of taxes, or (2) The election of members. And, first, with regard to the raising of TAXES. It is the antient indisputable privilege and right of the house of commons, that all grants or subsidies, or parliamentary aids, do begin in their house (a); although their grants are not effectual to all intents and purposes, until they have the assent of the other branch of the legislature. The reason commonly given for this exclusive privilege is, that the supplies are raised upon the body of the (y) Pike, Const. Hist. of House of Lords, 245. (z) Lord Clarendon relates, that the first instances of protests with reasons, in England, were in 1641, before which time they usually |